With victories in the Marianas campaign (on Saipan, on Guam, and on Tinian, during June and July 1944), American forces were getting close to Japan itself. From the Marianas, the very long-range B-29 Superfortressheavy bombers of the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) could bomb the Japanese home islands from well-supplied air bases – ones with direct access to supplies via cargo ships and tankers. (The earlier B-29 bombing campaign against Japan had been from the end of a very long and tortuous supply line via British India and British Burma – one that proved to be woefully inadequate. All B-29s were transferred to the Marianas during the fall of 1944.)

There had been a close relationship between the people of the Philippines and the United States since 1898, with the Philippines becoming the Commonwealth of the Philippines in 1935, and promised their independence in mid-1946. Furthermore, an extensive series of air attacks by the American Fast Carrier Task Force under Admiral William F. Halsey against Japanese airfields and other bases on the Philippines had drawn little Japanese opposition, such as interceptions by Japanese Army fighter planes. Upon Admiral Halsey's recommendation, the Combined Chiefs of Staff, meeting in Canada, approved a decision to not only move up the date for the first landing in the Philippines, but also to move it north from the southernmost island of Mindanao to the central island of Leyte, Philippines. The new date set for the landing on Leyte, October 20, 1944, was two months before the previous target date to land on Mindanao.

The Filipino people were ready and waiting for the invasion. After General MacArthur had been evacuated from the Philippines in March 1942, all of its islands fell to the Japanese. The Japanese occupation was harsh, accompanied by atrocities and with large numbers of Filipinos pressed into slave labor. From mid-1942 through mid-1944, MacArthur and Nimitz supplied and encouraged the Filipino guerrilla resistance by U.S. Navy submarines and a few parachute drops, so that the guerrillas could harass the Japanese Army and take control of the rural jungle and mountainous areas – amounting to about half of the archipelago. While remaining loyal to the United States, many Filipinos hoped and believed that liberation from the Japanese would bring them freedom and their already-promised independence.

The Australian government offered General MacArthur the use of the First Corps of the Australian Army for the Liberation of the Philippines. MacArthur suggested that two Australian infantry divisions be employed, each of them attached to a different U.S. Army Corps, but this idea was not acceptable to the Australian Cabinet, which wanted to have significant operational control within a certain area of the Philippines, rather than simply being part of a U.S. Army Corps.[17] No agreement was ever reached between the Australian Cabinet and MacArthur – who might have wanted it that way. As a result, the Australian Army played virtually no part in the Philippines. However, units from the Royal Australian Air Force and the Royal Australian Navy, such as the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia, were involved.

During the American re-conquest of the Philippines, the guerrillas began to strike openly against Japanese forces, carried out reconnaissance activities ahead of the advancing regular troops, and took their places in battle beside the advancing American divisions.[18][19]

On October 20, 1944, the U.S. Sixth Army, supported by naval and air bombardment, landed on the favorable eastern shore of Leyte, one of the islands of the Visayas island group, northeast of Mindanao. The Japanese miscalculated the relative strength of the naval and air forces, and they attempted to destroy the landing. This brought about the massive sequence of battles called the Battle of Leyte Gulf, fought on October 23 through October 26. This decisive victory by the U.S. Navy, its Fast Carrier Task Force, its surface fleet, and its submarines effectively destroyed the remainder of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), which had already lost all of its effective aircraft carrier forces. The IJN had four of its carriers sunk (ships with depleted air squadrons – which were used only as decoys), numerous battleships and heavy cruisers, and a large number of light cruisers and destroyers. The IJN was never able to fight a major battle after this.

Japanese leaflet designed to discourage the landing American troops.

The U.S. Sixth Army continued its advance from the east, as the Japanese rushed reinforcements to the Ormoc Bay area on the western side of the island. While the Sixth Army was continually reinforced, the U.S. Fifth Air Force was able to devastate the Japanese attempts at air attacks, and also provide much support to the Army's ground troops.

The Filipino guerrillas also performed valuable service in maintaining public order and in keeping the roads and highways free of congestion. After the American beachheads were established, the Leyte guerrilla groups were attached directly to the Sixth Army corps and divisions to assist in scouting, intelligence, and combat operations.[20][not in citation given]
With the initial U.S. Sixth Army landings on the beaches at Tacloban and Dulag, Colonel Ruperto Kangleon's units went into action. They dynamited key bridges to block Japanese displacement toward the target area; they harassed enemy patrols; and they sabotaged supply and ammunition depots. Information on enemy troop movements and dispositions sent from guerrilla outposts to Kangleon's Headquarters was dispatched immediately to Sixth Army.[21]

During many torrential rains and over difficult terrain, the advance continued across Leyte and onto the major island of Samar, just north of Leyte. On December 7, 1944, the U.S. Army units made another amphibious landing at Ormoc Bay and, after a major land and air battle, the landing force cut off all Japanese ability to reinforce and resupply their troops on Leyte. Although fierce fighting continued on Leyte for months, the U.S. Army was always in control.

The U.S. 6th Army's second major target to attack was Mindoro. This large island is directly south of Luzon and Manila Bay, and MacArthur's main goal in taking it was to be able to construct airfields on it for fighter planes that could dominate the sky over the most-important island of Luzon, with its major seaport and capital city of Manila.[22]

The Seventh Fleet's large invasion convoy from Leyte to Mindoro came under strong attack by kamikazes, but they could not delay the American invasion of Mindoro.[23] Mindoro was only lightly occupied by the Japanese Army, and much of it was held by Filipino guerrillas, so Mindoro was quickly overrun. U.S. Army engineers set about rapidly constructing a major air base at San Fabian. Besides being close to Luzon, Mindoro has another advantage: good flying weather nearly all the time, because this is a part of the Philippines that is relatively dry – quite unlike Leyte which receives torrential rains most of the year, not only giving it poor flying weather, but making it very muddy and difficult to construct airfields.

San Fabian was also the location of another breakthrough: the first appearance during the War in the Pacific of USAAF squadrons flying the fast, long-range P-51B Mustang fighters – far superior to anything that the Imperial Japanese Army or Navy had.

Mindoro was a major victory for the 6th Army and the USAAF, and it also provided the major base for the next move of MacArthur's 6th Army: the invasion of Luzon, especially at Lingayen Gulf on its western coast.

Troops of the 185th Inf., 40th Div., take cover behind advancing tanks while moving up on Japanese positions on Panay Island

On December 15, 1944, landings against minimal resistance were made on the southern beaches of the island of Mindoro, a key location in the planned Lingayen Gulf operations, in support of major landings scheduled on Luzon. On January 9, 1945, on the south shore of Lingayen Gulf on the western coast of Luzon, General Krueger's Sixth Army landed his first units. Almost 175,000 men followed across the twenty-mile (32 km) beachhead within a few days. With heavy air support, Army units pushed inland, taking Clark Field, 40 miles (64 km) northwest of Manila, in the last week of January.

Two more major landings followed, one to cut off the Bataan Peninsula, and another, which included a parachute drop, south of Manila. Pincers closed on the city. On February 3, 1945, elements of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division pushed into the northern outskirts of Manila, and the 8th Cavalry Regiment (organized as infantry) passed through the northern suburbs and into the city itself.

As the advance on Manila continued from the north and the south, the Bataan Peninsula was rapidly secured. On February 16, paratroopers and amphibious units simultaneously assaulted the islet of Corregidor. Taking this stronghold was necessary because troops there could block the entrance of Manila Bay. The Americans needed to establish a major harbor base at Manila Bay to support the expected invasion of Japan, planned to begin on November 1, 1945. Resistance on Corregidor ended on February 27, and then all resistance by the Japanese Empire ceased on August 15, 1945, obviating the need for an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands.

Despite initial optimism, fighting in Manila was harsh. It took until March 3 to clear the city of all Japanese troops, and the Japanese Marines, who fought on stubbornly and refused to either surrender or to evacuate as the Japanese Army had done. Fort Drum, a fortified island in Manila Bay near Corregidor, held out until April 13, when a team of Army troops went ashore and pumped 3,000 gallons of diesel fuel into the fort, then set off incendiary charges. No Japanese soldiers in Fort Drum survived the blast and fire.

In all, ten U.S. divisions and five independent regiments battled on Luzon, making it the largest American campaign of the Pacific war, involving more troops than the United States had used in North Africa, Italy, or southern France.

Palawan Island, between Borneo and Mindoro, the fifth largest and western-most island of the Philippines, was invaded on February 28, with landings of the Eighth United States Army at Puerto Princesa. The Japanese put up little direct defense of Palawan, but cleaning up pockets of Japanese resistance lasted until late April, with the Japanese using their common tactic of withdrawing into the mountains and jungles, dispersed as small units. Throughout the Philippines, U.S. forces were aided by Filipino guerrillas to find and dispatch the holdouts,[24] the last of whom, Hiroo Onoda, did not surrender until 1974, in the mountains of Lubang Island in Mindoro.

The U.S. Eighth Army then moved on to its first landing on Mindanao (April 17), the last of the major islands of the Philippines to be taken. Mindanao was followed by invasion and occupation of Panay, Cebu, Negros and several islands in the Sulu Archipelago. These islands provided bases for the U.S. Fifth and Thirteenth Air Forces to attack targets throughout the Philippines and the South China Sea.

Following additional landings on Mindanao, U.S. Eighth Army troops continued their steady advance against stubborn resistance. By the end of June, the enemy pockets were compressed into isolated pockets on Mindanao and Luzon where fighting continued until the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945. However, some units of the Japanese Army were out of radio contact with Tokyo, and it was difficult to convince some of them that Japan had surrendered. As at many Pacific Islands, major Japanese officials, including members of the Imperial Family, visited in person to convince the soldiers that they must surrender by order of the Emperor.[25]

^MacArthur, Douglas (1994). Reports of General MacArthur. United States Army. p. 445. LCCN66-60005. Retrieved August 15, 2014. The radio also stated that members of the Imperial family were being sent to Japan's numerous theaters of operations as personal representatives of the Emperor to expedite and insure full compliance with the Imperial order to cease hostilities.

1.
Pacific War
–
The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in the Pacific and East Asia. It was fought over a vast area that included the Pacific Ocean and islands, the South West Pacific, South-East Asia, and in China. The Pacific War saw the Allied powers pitted against the Empire of Japan, the formal and official surrender of Japan took place aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. In Allied countries during the war, The Pacific War was not usually distinguished from World War II in general, or was known simply as the War against Japan. Japan used the name Greater East Asia War, as chosen by a decision on 10 December 1941. Japanese officials integrated what they called the Japan–China Incident into the Greater East Asia War, in Japan, the Fifteen Years War is also used, referring to the period from the Mukden Incident of 1931 through 1945. The Phayap Army sent troops to invade and occupy northeastern Burma, also involved were the Japanese puppet states of Manchukuo and Mengjiang, and the collaborationist Wang Jingwei regime. The official policy of the U. S. Government is that Thailand was not an ally of the Axis, Japan conscripted many soldiers from its colonies of Korea and Formosa. To a small extent, some Vichy French, Indian National Army, Germany and Italy both had limited involvement in the Pacific War. The German and the Italian navies operated submarines and raiding ships in the Indian, the Italians had access to concession territory naval bases in China, while the Germans did not. After Japans attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declarations of war, mexico, Free France and many other countries also took part, especially forces from other British colonies. Between 1942 and 1945, there were four main areas of conflict in the Pacific War, China, the Central Pacific, South East Asia, U. S. sources refer to two theaters within the Pacific War, the Pacific theater and the China Burma India Theater. However these were not operational commands, in the Pacific, the Allies divided operational control of their forces between two supreme commands, known as Pacific Ocean Areas and Southwest Pacific Area. In 1945, for a period just before the Japanese surrender. By 1937, Japan controlled Manchuria and was ready to move deeper into China, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937 provoked full-scale war between China and Japan. In August 1937, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to fight about 300,000 Japanese troops in Shanghai, the Japanese continued to push the Chinese forces back, capturing the capital Nanking in December 1937 and committed which was known as Nanking Massacre. In March 1938, Nationalist forces won their first victory at Taierzhuang, but then the city of Xuzhou was taken by Japanese in May. In June 1938, Japan deployed about 350,000 troops to invade Wuhan, the Japanese achieved major military victories, but world opinion—in particular in the United States—condemned Japan, especially after the Panay incident

2.
Douglas MacArthur
–
Douglas MacArthur was an American five-star general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and he received the Medal of Honor for his service in the Philippines Campaign, which made him and his father Arthur MacArthur, Jr. the first father and son to be awarded the medal. He was one of five men ever to rise to the rank of General of the Army in the US Army. During the 1914 United States occupation of Veracruz, he conducted a reconnaissance mission, in 1917, he was promoted from major to colonel and became chief of staff of the 42nd Division. From 1919 to 1922, MacArthur served as Superintendent of the U. S, Military Academy at West Point, where he attempted a series of reforms. His next assignment was in the Philippines, where in 1924 he was instrumental in quelling the Philippine Scout Mutiny, in 1925, he became the Armys youngest major general. He served on the martial of Brigadier General Billy Mitchell and was president of the American Olympic Committee during the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. In 1930, he became Chief of Staff of the United States Army, as such, he was involved in the expulsion of the Bonus Army protesters from Washington, D. C. in 1932, and the establishment and organization of the Civilian Conservation Corps. He retired from the US Army in 1937 to become Military Advisor to the Commonwealth Government of the Philippines, MacArthur was recalled to active duty in 1941 as commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East. A series of disasters followed, starting with the destruction of his air forces on 8 December 1941, MacArthurs forces were soon compelled to withdraw to Bataan, where they held out until May 1942. In March 1942, MacArthur, his family and his staff left nearby Corregidor Island in PT boats and escaped to Australia, upon his arrival in Australia, MacArthur gave a speech in which he famously promised I shall return to the Philippines. For his defense of the Philippines, MacArthur was awarded the Medal of Honor, after more than two years of fighting in the Pacific, he fulfilled a promise to return to the Philippines. He officially accepted Japans surrender on 2 September 1945, aboard USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay, as the effective ruler of Japan, he oversaw sweeping economic, political and social changes. He led the United Nations Command in the Korean War until he was removed from command by President Harry S. Truman on 11 April 1951 and he later became Chairman of the Board of Remington Rand. A military brat, Douglas MacArthur was born 26 January 1880, at Little Rock Barracks, Little Rock, Arkansas, to Arthur MacArthur, Jr. a U. S. Army captain, Pinkney came from a prominent Norfolk, Virginia, family. Two of her brothers had fought for the South in the Civil War, Arthur and Pinky had three sons, of whom Douglas was the youngest, following Arthur III, born on 1 August 1876, and Malcolm, born on 17 October 1878. The family lived on a succession of Army posts in the American Old West, conditions were primitive, and Malcolm died of measles in 1883. In his memoir, Reminiscences, MacArthur wrote I learned to ride and shoot even before I could read or write—indeed and this time on the frontier ended in July 1889 when the family moved to Washington, D. C. where Douglas attended the Force Public School

3.
Palo, Leyte
–
Palo is a 3rd class municipality in the province of Leyte, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 70,052 people, the municipality is the seat of most government departments, bureaus and regional offices of Region VIII, although some are situated at the neighboring city of Tacloban. The municipality is located in the part of the province of Leyte,8 miles from the capital city of Tacloban. Palo is politically subdivided into 33 barangays, the discovery of the advancing communities of Palo dates back to the early 16th century A. D. along the banks of Bangon River. However, local historians believe that the settlement of Palo started as early as the 10th to 13th century A. D. The first known settlement were the kingdom of Takuranga, first name of Palo under King Guban, and the Kingdom of Kaluugan, the other settlements were Kasangitan, Binangalan, Kasuguran, Bunga, Bangon and Guindapunan. The settlers of Bunga played a role in the history of Palo. Palo formally became a town in 1768 with Kapitan Balasabas as its first administration, accordingly, the early settlers of Palo were the clans of Panganuron, Kadampog, Manlangit, Kumago, Kawaring, Kabalhin, Kumagong, Maglain, Bilyu and Dilyu. Palo is considered to be one of the most historical towns of Leyte and it is well known as the site of Gen. Douglas MacArthurs return to the Philippines together with Philippine and American military forces after a period of exile in 1944. Hill 522, a located near the town center, was the site of fierce fighting between Allied and Japanese forces during the Second World War. The metropolitan cathedral of the archdiocese, located right across Palos municipal hall, was used as a hospital for wounded Filipino, a memorial now stands at the beach site where MacArthur and his troops landed, locally known as the MacArthurs Park. The first Gabaldon Building is also situated in Brgy and it was inaugurated by President Sergio Osmeña. Palo was also once the capital of Leyte, the towns Purissima Bridge was the first steel bridge built in the province. In 1957, sitio Campitic was converted into a barrio, while barrio Baras-Candahug was divided two, Baras and Candahug. Barrio Malirong was renamed as Libertad, on November 8,2013, Palo was severely struck by Typhoon Haiyan, which destroyed a large portion of Eastern Visayas and killed a number of residents in the town. On January 17,2015, Pope Francis visited the town as part of his visit to the Philippines to meet with the surviving victims of the typhoon. He also blessed the Pope Francis Center for the Poor and met with priests, seminarians, other religious figures, literacy rate in Palo is 99. 5%. The towns native language is Waray-Waray, the language and lingua franca in the Eastern Visayas region

4.
Philippines
–
The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is a sovereign island country in Southeast Asia situated in the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of about 7,641 islands that are categorized broadly under three main geographical divisions from north to south, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, the capital city of the Philippines is Manila and the most populous city is Quezon City, both part of Metro Manila. The Philippines has an area of 300,000 square kilometers, and it is the eighth-most populated country in Asia and the 12th most populated country in the world. As of 2013, approximately 10 million additional Filipinos lived overseas, multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands. In prehistoric times, Negritos were some of the archipelagos earliest inhabitants and they were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples. Exchanges with Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Islamic nations occurred, then, various competing maritime states were established under the rule of Datus, Rajahs, Sultans or Lakans. The arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in Homonhon, Eastern Samar in 1521 marked the beginning of Hispanic colonization, in 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honor of Philip II of Spain. With the arrival of Miguel López de Legazpi from Mexico City, in 1565, the Philippines became part of the Spanish Empire for more than 300 years. This resulted in Roman Catholicism becoming the dominant religion, during this time, Manila became the western hub of the trans-Pacific trade connecting Asia with Acapulco in the Americas using Manila galleons. Aside from the period of Japanese occupation, the United States retained sovereignty over the islands until after World War II, since then, the Philippines has often had a tumultuous experience with democracy, which included the overthrow of a dictatorship by a non-violent revolution. It is a member of the United Nations, World Trade Organization, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. It also hosts the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank, the Philippines was named in honor of King Philip II of Spain. Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos, during his expedition in 1542, named the islands of Leyte, eventually the name Las Islas Filipinas would be used to cover all the islands of the archipelago. Before that became commonplace, other such as Islas del Poniente. The official name of the Philippines has changed several times in the course of its history, during the Philippine Revolution, the Malolos Congress proclaimed the establishment of the República Filipina or the Philippine Republic. From the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the name Philippines began to appear, since the end of World War II, the official name of the country has been the Republic of the Philippines. The metatarsal of the Callao Man, reliably dated by uranium-series dating to 67,000 years ago is the oldest human remnant found in the archipelago to date and this distinction previously belonged to the Tabon Man of Palawan, carbon-dated to around 26,500 years ago. Negritos were also among the archipelagos earliest inhabitants, but their first settlement in the Philippines has not been reliably dated, there are several opposing theories regarding the origins of ancient Filipinos

5.
Second Philippine Republic
–
President Manuel L. Quezon declared the national capital Manila an open city, and left it under the rule of Jorge B. The Japanese entered the city on January 2,1942, japan fully captured the Philippines on May 6,1942, after the Battle of Corregidor. Its first director-general was Benigno Aquino, Sr, the pro-Japanese Ganap Party, which saw the Japanese as the saviours of the archipelago, was absorbed into the KALIBAPI. However, the Philippine Executive Commission refused this option and chose to make the Philippines a republic instead, during his first visit to the Philippines on May 6,1943, Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō promised to return independence to the Philippines as part of its propaganda of Pan-Asianism. This prompted the KALIBAPI to create the Preparatory Committee for Philippine Independence on June 19,1943, a draft constitution was formed by the Preparatory Commission for Independence, consisting of 20 members from the KALIBAPI. The Preparatory Commission, led by José P. Laurel, presented its draft Constitution on September 4,1943, former President Emilio Aguinaldo and General Artemio Ricarte raised the Philippine flag, the same one used during the Philippine–American War, during the inauguration. On the same day, a Pact of Alliance was signed between the new Republic and the Japanese government that was ratified two days later by the National Assembly, the event was also referred to as the Tokyo Conference. However, the Conference marked a point in Japanese foreign policy. It was also the start of efforts to create a framework that would allow for form of diplomatic compromise should the military solution fail altogether. However these moves came too late to save the Empire, which surrendered to the Allies less than two years after the conference. During his term in office, Laurel was faced with problems that the country was experiencing, such as the following, Shortages of food, clothing, oil. Heavy Japanese military presence throughout the entire region, Japanese control of transportation, media, and communications. Laurel attempted to show that the independence of the republic was genuine by rectifying these problems, prioritizing the shortages of food, he organized an agency to distribute rice, even though most of the rice was confiscated by Japanese soldiers. Manila was one of the places in the country that suffered from severe shortages. The people were forced to cultivate private plots which produced root crops like kangkong, the Japanese, in order to raise rice production in the country, brought a quick-maturing horai rice, which was first used in Taiwan. Horai rice was expected to make the Philippines self-sufficient in rice by 1943, the first issue in 1942 consisted of denominations of 1,5,10 and 50 centavos and 1,5, and 10 Pesos. The next year brought replacement notes of the 1,5 and 10 Pesos while 1944 ushered in a 100 Peso note, in 1945, the Japanese issued a 1,000 Pesos note. This set of new money, which was printed even before the war, anti-Japanese newspapers portrayed stories of going to the market laden with suitcases or bayong overflowing with the Japanese-issued bills

6.
Commonwealth of the Philippines
–
It replaced the Insular Government, a United States territorial government, and was established by the Tydings–McDuffie Act. The Commonwealth was designed as an administration in preparation for the countrys full achievement of independence. During its more than a decade of existence, the Commonwealth had a strong executive and its legislature, dominated by the Nacionalista Party, was at first unicameral, but later bicameral. In 1937, the government selected Tagalog–the language of Manila and its surrounding provinces–as the basis of the national language, womens suffrage was adopted and the economy recovered to its pre-Depression level before the Japanese occupation in 1942. The Commonwealth government went into exile from 1942 to 1945, when the Philippines was under Japanese occupation, in 1946, the Commonwealth ended and the Philippines claimed full sovereignty as provided for in Article XVIII of the 1935 Constitution. The Commonwealth of the Philippines was also known as the Philippine Commonwealth and it had official names in Tagalog, Kómonwélt ng Pilipinas and Spanish, Mancomunidad de Filipinas. The 1935 constitution specifies the Philippines as the short form name and uses the Philippine Islands only to refer to pre-1935 status. Under the Insular Government, both terms had official status, the pre-1935 U. S. territorial administration, or Insular Government, was headed by a governor general who was appointed by the president of the United States. In December 1932, the U. S. Congress passed the Hare–Hawes–Cutting Act with the premise of granting Filipinos independence, provisions of the bill included reserving several military and naval bases for the United States, as well as imposing tariffs and quotas on Philippine exports. The bill, however, was opposed by the then Philippine Senate President Manuel L. Quezon and was rejected by the Philippine Senate. A Constitutional Convention was convened in Manila on July 30,1934, on February 8,1935, the 1935 Constitution of the Commonwealth of the Philippines was approved by the convention by a vote of 177 to 1. The constitution was approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 23,1935, on 17 September 1935, presidential elections were held. Candidates included former president Emilio Aguinaldo, the Iglesia Filipina Independiente leader Gregorio Aglipay, Manuel L. Quezon and Sergio Osmeña of the Nacionalista Party were proclaimed the winners, winning the seats of president and vice-president, respectively. The Commonwealth Government was inaugurated on the morning of November 15,1935, the event was attended by a crowd of around 300,000 people. The new government embarked on ambitious nation-building policies in preparation for economic, a proper evaluation of the policies effectiveness or failure is difficult due to Japanese invasion and occupation during World War II. Japan launched an attack on the Philippines on December 8,1941. The Commonwealth government drafted the Philippine Army into the U. S. Army Forces Far East, Manila was declared an open city to prevent its destruction, and it was occupied by the Japanese on January 2,1942. Meanwhile, battles against the Japanese continued on the Bataan Peninsula, Corregidor and this government participated in the Pacific War Council as well as the Declaration by United Nations

7.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci

The Pacific War Council as photographed on 12 October 1942. Pictured are representatives from the United States (seated), China, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the Philippine Commonwealth.

President Osmeña with members of his cabinet. Front row; left to right: Jaime Hernandez, Secretary of Finance; President Osmeña; Col. Carlos P. Romulo, Resident Commissioner and Secretary of Information. Back row, left to right: Col. Mariano A. Erana, Judge Advocate General of the Philippine Army and Secretary of the Department of Justice, Labor, and Welfare; Dr. Arturo B. Rotor, Secretary of Agriculture and Commerce; Ismael Mathay, Budget and Finance Commissioner; Colonel Alejandro Melchor, Undersecretary of National Defense, representing General Basilio Valdes, Secretary of National Defense.

George Churchill Kenney (6 August 1889 – 9 August 1977) was a United States Army Air Forces general during World War …

General George C. Kenney

Kenney is 2nd from right top row

Three U.S. Army Air Force Boeing B-17E Flying Fortress bombers (s/n 41-2512, 41-2511 and 41-2509) in late 1941 or early 1942. Aircraft 41-2509 was wrecked in a landing accident at Hendricks Field, Florida (USA) on 16 May 1942, 41-2511 a day before. Hendricks Field was home of the Army Air Force Basic Training School at Sebring, Florida, where B-17 crews were trained. Note the aircraft still have the red "meatball" in the middle of the star insignia.